The government plans to pass legislation that would make it mandatory for NGOs receiving their funding from abroad to disclose where they are financed from. The law “is a disclosure statute that requires persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities”. Horrible stuff, what this government is planning. Apparently it is trying to threaten civil society with this new law. Some civil groups – the usual suspects – called it unacceptable that they were not consulted before such an unheard-of regulation was submitted to Parliament. Here’s a little problem though: the above quoted text is not from the Hungarian government’s pitch – though it could be, because it’s practically the same – but from the Foreign Agents Registration Act of the United States of America, which was enacted in 1938. Oops. There are very similar laws in a number of European countries and elsewhere in the world: seems to me that it’s not such an unheard-of regulation. So don’t let these foreign-financed civil groups fool you. The government is not going after your average NGO, the ones that are collecting trash or trying to help the homeless or orphaned animals. In fact nobody’s going after foreign-financed NGOs either. All they have to do is register and they will be more strictly obliged to disclose their sources of funding. The only thing that makes me wonder is why they have a problem with that…
-
Display
